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Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the senator’s niece and the daughter of the late president, introduced the eight-minute documentary, which Burns directed with fellow filmmaker Mark Herzog. Included were interviews with Massachusetts constituents as well as the senator’s wife, Vicki, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement central to the Kennedy legacy.

Most moving perhaps was the interview with Brian Hart, a Massachusetts father who lost his son in Iraq and later joined with Kennedy to try to improve the availability of body armor for troops in the war.

Hart spoke of the Kennedy’s family’s own loss when the senator’s eldest brother Joseph was killed in World War II. “Senator Kennedy was a living Gold Star family before I was born,” Hart recalled. “He remembers where his mother was, where his father was when they came to tell them that Joseph was killed. We share a wound that doesn’t heal . . . Sen. Kennedy taught me that government can function for the common man.”

But the central image sprang from Ulysses, and like Homer’s Greek hero, Kennedy seems to grow stronger with age.

“There is an extraordinary feeling of good will toward Ted Kennedy,” said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and long-time observer of Congress. “It is just astounding to me to see this build and build over time and the fact that someone can be both the liberal icon and the greatest legislator the party has produced in all of our lifetime.”

“It is just extraordinary. And his embrace of Obama, even though it didn’t immediate affect the course of the campaign, is a way of saying he’s one of us and we’re together.”

Amid the poetry, Monday night’s political stagecraft also showed another side of Kennedy — less Tennyson and more the showman tub-thumper.

This is the same man who led the “Where was George?” chant in the 1988 convention in Atlanta or in 2000 in Los Angeles: “That’s called progress -- not partisanship -- and that is Al Gore's way.”

This all rings true for the grandson of the colorful Boston politician “Honey Fitz” and as a child, Kennedy can recall learning politics listening in while his father plotted strategy with the New Bedford publisher, Basil Brewer. A Taft Republican, Brewer was furious with then Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge for helping to deliver the Republican convention to Dwight Eisenhower, and the New Bedford returns proved crucial to John F. Kennedy toppling Lodge in 1952 and setting himself on the path to the White House.

Readers' Comments (205)

I wonder why it's okay to lionize Ted Kennedy but not to discuss the real Ted Kennedy in the same way that Christopher Hitchens discusses the real Mother Teresa or anyone else who he and we have issues with. I don't see Ted Kennedy as a modern day Ulysses bringing his party home to port. And it seems obscene to paint him that way when the truth of the matter is known to one and all. I'm sorry that he's dying of Cancer but dying of Cancer doesn't make you magically into a good person. That is all.

TED IS A DRUNK WHO LET MARY JO DIE B/C HE WAS DRUNK AT THE WHEEL. JOE BIDENS HOME IS WORTH 1.3 MIL NOT INCLUDING HIS MOMS HOUSE ON THE COMPOUND. FREE THINKING DEMOCRAT @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Ted Kennedy - Great speech. Inspiring and unifying. One of the best of his career. Obama will see a bump from this. Home Run! Michelle Obama - Picture perfect. She did and said everything right. Ney-sayers will be stopped in their tracks. She could not have been better and the wind has been taken out of the sails of all the Michelle anti-American haters. Even Hillary women will have to take notice. GRAND SLAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cindy (Cruella DeVille) McCain could not and will not even come close to the momentum that Michelle has created tonight by her speech. INSPIRING..The true American Story. Self Made! Obama/Biden 08'

Obama does not deserve the nomination and he certainly doesn't deserve the position of POTUS. Obama is the most unqualified nominee the Democratic party has ever chosen. Not to mention all his shady associations.

Ted Kennedy - Great speech. Inspiring and unifying. One of the best of his career. Obama will see a bump from this. Home Run! Michelle Obama - Picture perfect. She did and said everything right. Ney-sayers will be stopped in their tracks. She could not have been better and the wind has been taken out of the sails of all the Michelle anti-American haters. Even Hillary women will have to take notice. GRAND SLAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cindy (Cruella DeVille) McCain could not and will not even come close to the momentum that Michelle has created tonight by her speech. INSPIRING..The true American Story. Self Made! Obama/Biden 08'

Great post, I'm not sure the biased polls will represent a fair bump for Michelle, during and after Ms. Obama's speech the news scrolled that McCain and Obama are tied and Ms. McCain's jet setting to Georgia as a humanitarian as though our jaws would drop in reverence.

What a surprise - well coached and ended with that very almost sincere 'God Bless America' - So which one is the real one? The one who hates America or the one who shines on and says 'God Bless America' when everyone is watching? I mean, is it true when you say something and haven't been coached into what is 'proper' to say or is it true when you speak from the heart? You know, it's all well and good to say woo hoo - great, marvelous and couldn't have been better if it was scripted/coached/ rehearsed and vetted - oh wait a minute - that's exactly what it was. And then the usual suspects ramble along saying how she 'hit it out of the ballpark' and other nonsense. The nonsense I find the most heinious was the channel that went to the braindead delegate who rambled on about the holy ghost had, oh , I mean, Michelle Obama, had touched her heart - and she was emotional right there for the cameras. Give me a break, it reminded me of a revival meeting. Soon they'll be speaking in tongues and handling snakes.

Who could not be moved by Ted Kennedy battling cancer making such an inspiring and passionate speech? Michelle Obama sounded and looked terrific and the daughters were gorgeous. A good first night at the convention.

Some of you people are seriously, seriously sad. Most of us probably have health insurance because of Ted Kennedy. You think that's nothing? Do you have $100k to pay for a pregnancy? An illness? He has time and again been on the side of right and decency in American politics, and this country owes him more than most of us will ever realize. As for Biden's house, I'm sorry, are you not aware of his personal history? Are you not aware of housing prices in the Northeast? And as for the slam on Obama, there are no shady associations, and I'm betting that hot white chick is probably an angry old man yelling at clouds.

Ted Kennedy....is one of the all time great Americans, and I am one of millions of Americans young and old committed to ensuring that the dream does indeed live on in November and beyond.

Well, he's getting ready to live his Twilight Zone dreams when all his victims will be there to meet him when that big light comes for him. Great American - give me a break. How is it that not paying for your crimes is a requisite to being a 'all time great American?' really, how does that work out and what kind of blinders do you have to wear to actually think like that?

Great post, I'm not sure the biased polls will represent a fair bump for Michelle, during and after Ms. Obama's speech the news scrolled that McCain and Obama are tied and Ms. McCain's jet setting to Georgia as a humanitarian as though our jaws would drop in reverence.

Mrs.McCain has been doing charity and humanity work for many years. Humanitarian trips are nothing new for Cindy McCain.